Nike Hopes To Become More Beavers-centric

While the Oregon St. Beavers run a Nike program, they're not as associated with the swoosh as their Civil War rivals are. Nike, of course, would like to change that:

"I feel I need to refresh everybody from where I come," [Nike vice president of design Tinker] Hatfield says. "I'm not just a Duck; I'm an Oregonian. I grew up by Corvallis. The real truth is there are probably as many Beavers working at Nike as there are Ducks.

"There's been a lot of interest from Oregon State, but also some trepidation about, ‘We don't want to be just like Oregon.' I'd like to allay some concerns about whether we are so Duck-centric we can't do anything with them."

Elsewhere, there's talk of developing a visual signature for OSU akin to what Nike accomplished with the Oregon Ducks feathers motif. Blocks of gnarled wood and buck teeth everywhere, probably.